Musings on The Muse by Julian Shah-Tayler

Welcome to the sporadic and not entirely well considered spewing forth from my pen. Love to you!

Friday, May 27, 2011

I quite like this one.... Alternative 3 album review.....

I am a FAN. This band are ace, and there is no doubt in my mind that with the right place/right time interface, they could clean up everywhere.

This album is the culmination of months of hibernation in their studio, honing the shimmering retro sounds of Duran Duran and early Blur. At first listen, it throws you into a spin, as it is so unusual to hear an album that glitters so bright with casual pop diamonds as these.

It is impossible to say which of these songs could possibly NOT be a single, from the poptastic 'Let's Go Electronic' all the way to mindblending elegaic epitaph, 'The Light Years Ahead'.

This could even be argued to be one of the faults of the record. The reason it drops half a star: every card that is played is an Ace, an uptempo blast of exuberant electronic energy that leaves you exhilarated and ecstatic, with no room to breathe.

Littering the little binary dots are highs that compete with all the breathless energy that coexists in the world of music. It is dismissive to describe them as simple pop, as every note is as considered as surgery, and each performance is as perfect as creation. This clinical precision, this mechanical soul gives it its one flaw.

A little more humanity (real bass and drums?) would lift the communication to a higher plane. That said, 'Heaven Underground, Vision, Feels Like' are all magnificent essays into the science of perfect pop.

They are a duo of massive talent and if there is a God, he sings these songs in the shower.